Category: Sports

If you are not busy on Monday evening, you can check out the action at the 7 p.m. Anne Arundel County Council Hearing. Buses will be arriving from Laurel Park at the Calvert Street locations loaded with horsemen and protestors ready to thwart the the attempts to zone for slots next to Arundel Mills. According to Maryland Horse Council president Steuart Pittman and representatives of the Maryland Jockey Club, if slots go to Arundel Mills, Laurel Park’s value will immediately plummet, resulting in fewer possible buyers for the tracks at the upcoming bankruptcy auction. If there are no buyers for the track, because the track can’t get slots, then the theory is that the land will have no value to anyone but a housing developer. If zoning is denied for Arundel Mills slots on Monday, the Jockey Club will submit a proposal for slots at Laurel, it’s value will increase, and the track will be given a new future with new ownership. The vote is projected to be a close one. If you are interested in spectating, you can watch the meeting. If you are interested in supporting the Jockey Club’s position, click here for information on what you can...

Slots For Cecil! Cecil Whig Celebrates Stand-off Over Arundel: Commission and County Draw Lines In The Sand BWI & Slots? Interest In Laurel Heats Up, but Stalking Horse Stalled In Gate Initial proposals have been received for potential bidders for the bankruptcy auction sale of Pimlico & Laurel race courses. Although track owner Magna will not confirm who is interested, names floated include Carl Verstandig, Joe De Francis, and David Cordish. The announcement of the stalking horse bidder, scheduled for today, November 9, has been delayed until Wednesday, November 11, according to the Daily Record. ...

Will Delaware’s new sports betting hurt future Maryland slots? Numbers are up at Dover Downs. Cecil County bid okeyed for additional slots, vote for license expected this week. Could Pimlico become the “Disney” of racing? Verstandig’s vision. Track auction set for Jan. 8, and De Francis wants back...

On Friday, October 9, the Magna Entertainment Corp., which owns Pimlico Race Course and Laurel Park, asked a bankruptcy judge for permission to auction its Maryland racetracks. This request is after Magna announced over the summer that the tracks would not be auctioned. Magna has placed a condition on the bid requests that the Preakness Stakes remain at Pimlico under the track’s new ownership. The Baltimore Sun reported today that the auction date is proposed for January 8, 2010 with a deadline of November 2, 2009 for potential bids. So far, Baltimore developer David S. Cordish and Baltimore Orioles owner Peter G. Angelos, have both expressed interest in the tracks. To read the complete story, click here: The Baltimore...

Now that Maryland has issued its first license for a slots parlor at Ocean Downs near Ocean City, Don Fry, chair of the state’s Video Lottery Facility Location Commission, tells The Equiery in an exclusive interview with Ross Peddicord what’s up with the rest of the license applications, how soon Maryland horsemen can expect to see some of their share of the revenue in their winning purse & breeders’ award checks, and what to look for in 2010 as the slots licensing process and opening of the first slots casinos takes place. Stay tuned for more! To read more about the the approval of Ocean Downs, see the Daily Record. Ross Peddicord is a publisher of Maryland Life...

by Ross Peddicord – Maryland Life “Hey there’s a sure thing running in the 4th race at Pimlico!” The in-house handicapper at Maryland racetracks hasn’t gotten around to tweeting that sort of hot tip yet to racing fans, but the Maryland Jockey Club tracks have begun delving into the brave new world of social media and using it as a marketing tool to attract new fans and to keep existing ones in the loop. There’s a Laurel Facebook page (as well as ones for Pimlico, Preakness and the Infield Fest), the track’s Aug. 22 Family Fun Day was advertised on Craigslist (the jockeys engaged in a Rody Pony race! Google Rody Ponies on the web to find out what this is about), ad banners for special race days are placed on washingtonpost.com, there is an active group of bloggers alerting fans on track happenings (such as the aspiringhorseplayer.com) and there are Laurel accounts both on My Space and Twitter. “Hey there is a reggae band playing during the twilight racing card on Friday evening at Laurel. Come on out, it’s a lot of fun.” If you are a Twitter follower of Megan Forshey, you heard it first from her Tweet, sent out to hundreds of followers from her Twitter account. Megan is the 20-something marketing specialist at the Maryland Jockey Club tracks who is devoting more and more of...